A display device including a display panel, such as a liquid crystal panel, displays the gradation of an image by changing light transmittance for each pixel of the liquid crystal panel and thus controlling the amount of light which is emitted from a backlight disposed on the back surface and transmitted through the panel. Since there are individual differences in gamma characteristics among liquid crystal panels, gradation characteristics specific to each display device are corrected in the manufacturing process to achieve a desired gradation characteristics.
However, the gamma characteristics of a display device vary depending on the display panel temperature. The display panel temperature is obtained by adding the ambient temperature to the temperature of the device itself whose circuit is generating heat. Accordingly, if the ambient temperature around a display device in actual use by a user is different from the ambient temperature around the display device in the manufacturing process, the gamma characteristics of the display device are also different between the two circumstances. Consequently, the desired gradation representation or hue may not be reproduced when the display device is actually used. Conventionally, gradation characteristics or the like have been temperature-compensated to maintain gradation representation or color reproducibility at any display panel temperature. However, exact measurement of the display panel temperature requires working on the display panel such as disposition of a temperature sensor inside the panel, resulting in a significant cost increase. For this reason, conventionally, gradation characteristics or the like have been temperature-compensated using a temperature which can be measured easily outside the display panel.
Disclosed as the related art is a display device including an outside air temperature detection unit configured to detect an outside air temperature outside the exterior unit of a liquid crystal display device, an internal temperature detection unit configured to detect an internal temperature inside the exterior unit, and a liquid crystal drive circuit configured to output a drive voltage corresponding to the difference between an outside air temperature and an internal temperature detected by the respective temperature detection units (see Patent Document 1).